Life Gifts

It has begun to strike me that everything in our lives is a gift, and that nothing is really yours. You are entrusted with things by God. You do not achieve things on your own, you can't even fully keep your children safe by yourself. Your money is not yours. Your children are not your own. They are simply entrusted to you.

Even your life is not your own.

We are like three year olds. How many times have you given a child something, only to be met by a shaking head when you ask for a small piece? Perhaps that is like us and God.

Perry is/was a wonderful gift, shaped by loving hands and placed in our family. He was exactly what we needed, laid back and happy, where Emily was more vivacious and demanding. They were so different, but so complimentary. They liked spending time together. Emily coloring happily or playing with little people on the floor and Perry propping his body up on his arms (or slobbering on a little people animal or person). Emily would often lay with her foot touching some part of his body while she played busily by his leap frog toy, or would climb in her bed and wrap her arm around them as they watched mobiles. The worst part of all this was that I had a hard time convincing her she couldn't lay on him like she did Mommy and Daddy, that he was more fragile. But she learned, and figured out ways to express her love physically without hurting him. They were Yin and Yang.

But knowing all this does not make things any easier. A perfect gift for us, shaped by our creator, is bound to be missed. We naturally want to live long lives and enjoy each gift to the maximum extent.

That said, nothing is fully in our control. How do we learn to live with this? I struggle with this today, and I pray a lot and talk to God. I think he understands, I love my Daughter and remember her times of extreme generosity and caring even when she stubbornly clings to a single marshmallow in her lucky charms. How can any loving Father, be any different?

I read a sad post by a woman who did not feel that the bible told her where her child is. I personally think it is obvious, it comes in understanding relationships. Is our God not our Father? Has he not been our Father since he created us in the womb? If a husband caressed his wife's pregnant belly, why would our God (who we are created in his image) not do the same? If he has known "saints" in the womb, why not every child? Do you love any one child less? I tend to believe that we see God through others when the best of their characteristics shine through. There are so many references to God getting angry when Pagans sacrificed their infants, 'the innocents'. If he can love a Pagan's child, he loves ours no less. And if he loves them, why would he not gather them in his arms? Every parent understands what a child is capable of. He would not punish a child because they are not capable of making/expressing complex decisions any more than we would spank a five month old for breaking something we left in their reach. He would not punish a child because the parents did not baptise him/her.

So I am trying to remember this Christmas that Perry is home. That this house that saw his creation and his death is a very temporary structure, a way point on our journey. But please remember that I am still very much a three year old. I still want him with us.

Perry and I. Not my best picture, but I wasn't intending on being in the pictures. I was just holding Perry. I am glad Joey took it anyway.